Cutting Vinyl At Abbey Road

SOS visits the world’s most famous studio to discover how the ones and zeroes in a digital recording get turned into physical mechanical grooves on a vinyl record.

Masters of mastering Miles Showell and Geoff Pesche fire up their vintage Neumann lathes at Abbey Road Studios and demonstrate the delicate process of cutting a lacquer disc. It’s a skilled business that requires man and machine to work together in perfect harmony — and the slightest mistake will make the resulting album unplayable.

No pressure then...

Miles and Geoff explain how to prepare a digital audio file for analogue vinyl mastering, the pitfalls and things to watch for in a mix, and give a fascinating overview of the vinyl cutting process from start to finish.

Chapters

00:00 - Meet The Abbey Road Engineers: Miles Showell and Geoff Pesche
01:50 - Considerations For Vinyl Mastering
03:18 - Mixing Tips For Vinyl Masters
04:36 - Neumann VMS 80 Vinyl Cutting Lathe
05:27 - Direct Metal Mastering Lathe
06:01 - Lathe Groove Spacing Computer
08:14 - How To Approach Cutting A Record
09:37 - Stages Of The Process
11:28 - Setting Up A Lathe With A Lacquer Disc
12:53 - Cutting On The Neumann Lathe
16:49 - Controls And Meters On The Lathe
19:14 - Mechanical Recording Of Music
20:00 - Run Out Groove And Writing Comments
21:36 - What's Special About Vinyl?
23:02 - Outro
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#abbeyroad #vinyl #mastering #music #musicproduction

[murkyseb]

Records will always seem like some bizarre futuristic technology to me. A piece of plastic that sings to you when you scrape a diamond over it. Magic

[blastfromthepast-od]

In the early '90s, I played on a record that was then cut at Abbey Road. Now I know how it was done! I'm still proud to have been on something that was part-manufactured here.

[InfectiousGroovePodcast]

As long as I live, I will never stop being fascinated with the entire process from recording to my turntable.

[JGerman]

The life that vinyl has given to the music industry is invaluable. Thanks for a glimpse into this incredible process that is the epitome of analog.

[solardisk]

I have a copy of Bob Marley's Legend that was cut in half speed, the difference is incredible. You can hear so much more detail in the little background percussion sounds, it takes on a life of its own. Just looked at the inner margin and there's MILES's name! Great job, Miles!! It sounds really amazing!

[drzazgi]

Absolutely AMAZING material. Thanks to everyone who made it possible. Hope you'll get a lot of views on that one. More material like this, please. Even if it's a little bit trickier to made, you leave behind an amazing and resourceful footage for future generations.

[maxtroy]

It’s been said that within a block of marble is the sculpture before it’s sculpted, and it’s the sculptor who simply reveals it.

A blank for cutting vinyl, mind blowing to think every single permutation of music that could ever be written is contained within that disk, and the vinyl lathe simply reveals one of them.

[pete]

What a cracking documentary, been playing vinyl for 55 years and never gave the cutting a thought until yesterday!

[richardbooth]

What a treat to have such excellent insights into the recording process.

[tima.]

Records will always be more magical than any other form of music because it was a record that first breathed life into and captured, a recorded voice and music.

[Pokavdeo]

This was absolutely fascinating and enjoyable. Thank you to all of those involved for educating me.

[halcyondaystunes]

Absolutely fantastic. I was grinning all the way through that. Oh the good old days indeed.
I love the little mastering tips too, which many so called home mastering 'experts' might find helpful 😁

[oldestgamer]

That last comment is right on the money, when I listen to vinyl, I listen to one, then another, then another, then another, the vinyl pulls me in! When I listen to digital, usually one or two sides and I'm done, digital just seems to be much less involving. So when someone asks me why is vinyl better than digital, that is the answer. Doesn't make sense, but that is almost always what happens.

[makinganoise]

Spent yesterday in an Analogue Studio with some serious kit that cost a fortune back in the day. We were doing some tracks for a Student doing a Music Production Degree at University, we had to do each song as a complete take, very different from how would be done now digitally, only overdub will be vocals, everybody playing in separate booths, took me back 30 years!!

[shadowmixx]

Tangible music.
If that doesn't hit close to home, I don't know what will. I think EVERY downloading, file sharing, digital junkie of this generation who has never held any vinyl in their hands should watch this great video all the way through. After years of having me put music on her iPod, I can still remember the first Saturday that I took my baby girl into a locally owned record store. That store is gone now, and I am so glad we shared the memory. I took a picture of her actually holding the Michael Jackson album Thriller, which she had never seen a physical copy of. She was in awe. Priceless magic.

[chriszanf]

Would be lovely to have an extra of how they cut things like locked grooves, reversed grooves (plays outwards) and I have a Kevin Sanderson record that has parallel grooves so depending which one you drop the needle on is which track plays (E-Dancer – Velocity Funk / Banjo / The Move on KMS records)

[rzerobzero]

"Disc cutting systems roll off top. That's what they do. It's the nature of the beast. That's why records sound warmer. They don't add low end. They roll top off."

There it is. The secret of vinyl. I've never heard it explained so succinctly.

[beatmet]

The technical aspects of this fascinate me to no end. The fact a cutting head can etch such audio detail with a relatively simple procedure. CDs and tapes seem logical, knowing how they’re made, but the fact you can replicate what is on that tape on grooved disc with all the same audio content blows my mind. It doesn’t seem logical. It’s a groove physically cut into a solid surface.

[ZetaReticulian]

“Be naked in church”
And
“Master ate your cat”
Are the best “cryptic” groove autographs I’ve ever come across on a record.
Coincidentally…. They where both on acid house music records.

[drizzl]

those are real mastering engineers who know every aspect of the craft and thats why i personally as a mixer dont like to call myself mastering engineer on top even with a good understanding of the field.